


Breakfast and Rainbow Bright

by FinnWyatt



Category: Original Work
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Original Character(s), Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23515750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinnWyatt/pseuds/FinnWyatt
Summary: Adrian decides to make Eli breakfast at an ungodly hour of the morning.
Relationships: Eli/Adrian





	Breakfast and Rainbow Bright

Adrian had decided that morning that he would make a real breakfast for the first time in years. Not for himself, or course, but it was still a step forward. It was some ungodly hour in the morning – way too early for Adrian to be awake on any normal day – and yet there he was, moving gracefully around their tiny kitchen, humming softly to himself as he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge. 

He rarely let his guard down like this, just like he rarely got up before ten on a good day. But this was a special case. He had woken up at four in the morning and he hadn’t been able to fall back asleep no matter what he tried. This happened every once in a while, and when it did he would usually just lie in bed counting the cracks on his ceiling until after Eli left for work. Then he would drag himself out of bed and to his desk, where he would sit with his laptop open on a blank document until he finally succumbed to his drowsiness, his head dropping into his crossed arms. 

That morning, though, he had awoken with an unusual amount of energy and the inexplicable urge to accomplish something. Great, he thought to himself, sitting up and turning so his legs dangled over the edge of his bed. He looked around his small, cluttered room. Eli was constantly telling him he should clean it, but Adrian insisted that it would throw off his system. (It might have been a mess, but if you asked for a safety pin he could point you to the exact spot on his floor where one would be lying.) He rolled his head back and listened to the sound of cars outside his window. Every few minutes, passing headlights would light up his room, the shadow of his blinds casting a striped pattern on the far wall. What do people even do this early in the morning?

After a while spent staring at an old Fleetwood Mac poster hanging on his wall, he shook his head, realizing that Eli would be up soon. The crazy bastard woke up at five-thirty every morning and got ready in a hazy rush, leaving the apartment by six on the dot every time. Adrian didn’t know how he did it, or why, but he never complained, and the man never disturbed him, leaving him to sleep as long as he wanted and never giving him shit about it either. 

It was a good arrangement. 

Adrian grabbed for his phone on his nightstand and checked the time, squinting at the bright screen. 4:43am. He sighed and pushed himself off of the bed, groaning softly as he stretched. Listening for any sign of movement from the hallway, he grabbed the first thing he saw on the end of his bed – a pair of loose jeans and a dark t-shirt – and quite literally got dressed in the dark. He opened his door slowly and stepped into the hallway, creeping past Eli’s closed door and into their living room. He stopped to open the blinds on their window – pointless really, but Eli had once mentioned something about how nice the sky looked in the morning when he drove into work – before entering the kitchen and fumbling for the light switch. 

Soft, artificial light filled the small space, causing Adrian to squint slightly until his eyes adjusted. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, taking in the untouched, almost sad state of the room before finally deciding how he would spend these extra thirty minutes before Eli awoke. Work had been especially hard on the other man over the past couple of days, late nights and aggravating coworkers causing him to return home every night and drag himself straight to his bedroom without so much as glancing toward the kitchen. Adrian could tell from the lack of dishes in the sink every morning and the fairly consistent level of food in their fridge that Eli hadn’t been eating breakfast either. For all he knew, the only food that Eli had been getting over the past week had been during his measly lunch break every day. 

Adrian hadn’t said anything about it. (That would have been pretty hypocritical of him after all, seeing as the main reason he could tell that the level of food in the house hadn’t changed was because he hadn’t been eating much, either.) But he knew that this couldn’t go on for much longer. They had a system in the apartment; neither of them really had their shit together, but one always pretended that he did while the other was allowed to wallow in whatever it was he was dealing with at the time. This week had been the longest stretch of time since Eli moved in with him that he had had to hold himself to a higher standard for the other man’s sake. It was becoming tiresome, but the only way he knew to get Eli out of this slump was to step it up and help him ride it out. It would get him back on his feet faster, at least. 

He wasn’t quite sure how to go about this whole plan, but he figured that a good place to start might be with getting Eli back to a somewhat normal diet. So, there he was at 5:26 in the morning, a steaming mug of hot cocoa sitting on the counter next to an empty plate that would soon hold the scrambled eggs and toast (the most nutritious food he could find in their frankly sad refrigerator) that he was currently making. He continued to hum a familiar tune to himself as he grabbed the toast from the toaster, burning his fingers in the process (“I don’t get why I can’t just stick something in there to get it out. What are the chances of it killing me anyway?” “Because I don’t want to deal with your whining if you get electrocuted.”) and cursing as he tried to spread stubbornly clumpy butter onto each slice. 

He was in the middle of plating the eggs (a term he had heard on those daytime T.V. cooking shows he liked to watch) when he heard a soft and groggy “Adrian?” from behind him. He set the pan down on the stove and turned to face a confused-looking Eli standing in the living room wearing nothing but his glasses and a pair of dark green pajama pants rolled up at the waist because they were just a little too long for his short legs. Eli ran a hand through his hair and glanced behind Adrian at the plate of steaming food on the counter. His face scrunched up and he looked back to the other man. 

“I thought someone was breaking in,” he said in a monotonous voice, like he couldn’t bring himself to be concerned even if that were the case. 

Adrian chuckled and turned back to the food on the counter, picking up the mug in one hand and balancing the plate in the other. He walked quickly to the counter that separated Eli and himself and set them down in front of him. “Well if I was, I’d be the most considerate burglar ever.” He reached back to open a drawer, grabbing a fork from it and setting it down next to the plate. 

Eli stared down at the food, his face strangely blank as he took in the situation. “You…” He glanced back up at Adrian. “You made breakfast?” 

Adrian nodded. “Well, for you. I figured you could use some real food before you head out to deal with those assholes at the office all day.” Then, in an attempt to put a stop to the cocky grin beginning to spread across Eli’s face, he added, “Plus, you’re cranky when you’re hungry, and I’m tired of having to hide away in my room every night.”

Eli rolled his eyes and stepped toward the counter, hopping up onto one of the small wooden stools that sat in front of it and pulling the food closer to himself. He looked at the eggs suspiciously before getting a forkful and lifting it to his mouth. “Holy shit!”

Adrian jumped at the outburst. “Jesus!” He stared at Eli, wide-eyed. “What the hell, man?”

Eli matched his stare. “I could ask you the same thing!” He took another bite of eggs, washing them down with a gulp of hot cocoa. “Have you been able to cook this whole time?”

Adrian rubbed at the back of his neck. “I picked up a few things. Sitting around watching those cooking shows all the time. Plus, no one in my house ever really cooked, so…”

“You’re telling me we’ve been ordering crappy takeout and eating dinner from a can for six months, and you’ve been some sort of fucking wonder-chef this whole time?” Eli had stopped eating for a second to level Adrian with a playful glare.

Adrian shrugged unapologetically. “I figured you liked crappy takeout,” he said with a smirk.

Eli paused, as if to respond, before shaking his head and taking a bite of toast. “Whatever, man.” He picked up his fork and used it to point at Adrian. “Hey, you need to eat something, too. I’m not gonna be the only one who’s forced to get his act together this morning.” He grabbed the untouched piece of toast from his plate and dropped it on the counter in front of the other man. “At least for you it’s not a sneak attack.”

“Fine.” Adrian grabbed the toast with one hand, leaning on the counter with his weight on his elbow. “Might as well. My morning routine’s fucked anyway.”

Eli chuckled, and the two men ate in silence for a few moments, Adrian finishing his toast quickly and then simply watching Eli as he ate. After a while, Eli broke the silence with a sharp huff. 

Adrian jumped slightly. “What?”

Eli looked up at him with a poorly-concealed grin on his face. “That uh…that song you were humming.” 

“Yeah…” Adrian drew out suspiciously. “What about it?”

Eli locked eyes with Adrian for a second before laughing softly and shaking his head, looking back down at the counter and asking in a teasing voice, “Was that the fucking Rainbow Bright song? The one that that horse sings at the beginning of the movie?”

Adrian sputtered for a moment while Eli began to full-on laugh. He thought back (he hadn’t really been thinking about it at the time, the familiar notes just flowing from his chest) and realized with a small amount of embarrassment that he had, in fact, been humming the song from the not-so-much-beloved children’s movie Rainbow Bright; targeted at seven year-old girls all around the world. He must have picked up the tune from somewhere; perhaps when he had been forced to stay at his neighbor’s house when he was a kid and his parents couldn’t make it home. Their daughter – an entitled seven, going on eight year-old who trailed glitter everywhere she went and blamed every missing piece of her mom’s jewelry on him – watched that sort of stuff all the time. He tried to ignore the heat in his cheeks as he scowled at Eli, who was still laughing like he had just been let in on the world’s funniest inside joke. “Fuck you.” He swiped at Eli, not sure what he was trying to accomplish, but succeeding in at least throwing Eli off balance on his stool, causing him to stop laughing long enough to steady himself. 

He didn’t let it go, though. “I can’t believe it,” he teased. “I thought you only listened to obscure indie music.” He chuckled once more. 

Adrian crossed his arms like a petulant child. “Shut up.” Then, suddenly realizing something, he perked up, letting out a laugh of his own. “You’re the one who recognized it, ass.”

Eli’s smile left his face immediately, his eyes widening. The two men stared at each other in silence for a few seconds – a stale mate – before suddenly bursting into laughter. Eli composed himself just long enough to hop off the stool and shake his head. “I gotta get ready for work.” He walked to the hallway, pausing and turning back to look at Adrian one more time. He smirked. “See you tonight, ass.”


End file.
